For all those in the U.S.!

vector illustration of background for Fourth of July American Independence Day

We’re having a few people over to swim, BBQ hamburgers and hot dogs and just hang out. Hope you all have a safe and fun day!

Happy Friday!

Less than two weeks until the RWA Conference in San Diego! I’m not ready. But I’m so looking forward to a break! I’m pouring everything into the revision of Savaged Dreams, and I have a long ways to go yet. Fixing the specific problems is easy, but working on getting more emotion in there and really “baring your characters souls” as my editor said takes a lot of time and effort.

Um…anyone seen my Super Writer Cape? I seem to have lost it.

Businesswoman in superwoman concept

No? Sigh…guess I’ll just have to do this the old fashion way by putting my butt in the chair, and keep typing.

Monday is the Fourth of July! How did that happen? It seems like it was just New Years. My weekend will be mostly working, and then Monday I think we’re having Wizard’s brother over and maybe CPA Boy? I need to find out and nail it down, LOL! We’ll have fun, and pulling a BBQ together is pretty easy. OH! And I’ll make a dessert! I’m looking forward to that. I’ve been following Weight Watchers and working out, so I’m ready to splurge for a day!

So what should I make for my big splurge dessert? Any suggestions?

What are your weekend and Fourth of July plans?

Hot and Humid–I’m over it! Today it should start improving, so yay. But it’s been so icky, Wizard is stuck in the house and even the pool is unappealing. But at least we have air conditioning!

For our Worthy Candidate today, here’s a guy fresh out of the sea. I know the picture is a little dark, but believe me, he’s some sort of Sea Hunk, maybe he’s a Navy S.E.A.L??? Anyway he’s our candidate today.

So what do you think, is he worthy?

My weekend was frantically working on the same first chapter over and over in my revision of Savaged Dreams. I **might** have gotten closer, I just sent it off to my critique partner and we’ll see. It has to be good, and the rest of the revision should fall in line much more easily. I also cleaned…and NOT just because Wizard came in the house and put the business card of a housecleaning service on the fridge. But I was going to clean anyway. Really!! Seriously, he took the card from someone he met in the neighborhood because, he said, he’s been thinking of hiring someone for a couple months to take pressure off me. I was touched by that, since he already helps out quite a bit himself too.

But I still cleaned, LOL! Not sure if we’ll actually hire someone, I’m too cheap, and also, not wealthy.

In other news, the cover and title for Ethan and Ana’s novella is done! I’m pretty happy. I think we’ll do a reveal in my newsletter soon.

So that’s my weekend, how was yours?

My happy today is I’m all finished with Jury Duty! I was on “stand by” all week and didn’t get called in. To be clear, I would have gone if I had been called in, but I got lucky this time around

But this is me reworking the first chapter of Savaged Dreams.

Except I don’t have those pretty green eyes and I’m not cute, LOL! I should have had this chapter nailed by now. It’s not that hard, dang it. I just don’t love anything I’m writing yet but I will get there! I really need to get this moving and back to my editor in the next couple weeks before the RWA conference in mid-July.

And on a totally different subject, I’m trying to read a book by an author I love, and it’s just not working for me. Yet I can’t make myself set it aside. Most everyone else loves it, so it’s just me being weird or stressed or something. I really love 99.9% of her books and not loving this one is actually almost painful. I want to love it so much. Does that ever happen to you guys?  Am I alone here?

Otherwise, my weekend will be pretty boring, how about you? Tell me what’s good and bad this week, and if you have any exciting plans this weekend.

Man it’s been hot! But we should get a little relief for a few days. And I’m on call for Jury Duty this week. In California, that means I either call or go online the night before to see if I have to go in. So far, I haven’t been “on standby” so I haven’t had to go in, which is great. But I hate not being able to plan anything since I don’t know until the night before if I’ll need to go in or not. But this is just a minor inconvenience.

Other than that, I’ve been reading through and making notes on revisions for Savaged Dreams. I have a ton of thoughts on how to strengthen the book and excited to tackle them. But I have one problem–I’m stumped on how to fix the opening scene which means I can’t get started until I figure that out. While I work on that problem, your job is to evaluate our Wednesday Worthy Candidate:

So what do you guys think. Is he worthy?

I hope everyone had a Happy Father’s day! Ours was quiet but nice. Two kids couldn’t get out here, but called or texted and Youngest Son (BLB) came out last night.

My happy news is I sent Ethan and Ana’s novella off to my editor! Then I took a break to do some shopping, getting some clothes for conference this summer in San Diego. Wizard is going with me this year, and I’m excited about that. He’s a die-hard Giants (Baseball) fan and found out they are playing at the stadium right by the hotel. Great timing! He’s so happy.

Now I’m re-reading the manuscript for Savaged Dreams to tackle revisions and jumping right back on the Worry Train I must like this agony, LOL! I love the story as much as ever, but the manuscript needs some work. Too bad editorial revisions don’t come step-by-step instructions, LOL! But it turns out it’s my editor’s job to tell me what needs work and my job to figure out how to fix it

My bummer was yesterday morning. Wizard and I were getting ready to go out to breakfast for Father’s Day, when Wizard noticed something on my purse.

See the pink on the bottom left corner? That is from a pink shirt I was wearing that evidently bled on the purse and we can’t get it off. It’s crazy! I’ve never had that happen. I’ve had this Michael Korr’s purse for almost two years. I bought it with birthday gift cards from the kids after I hit some milestone in sales. Anyway, my expensive (to me) purse was taken out by an $8.00 Target tank top, LOLOL!! I believe I will survive this calamity, however, because I’m tough like that. In all seriousness, it’s just a purse, but I thought it was weird enough share.

Oh and don’t worry, the pink tank top is perfectly fine

So how was your weekend?